Traditional motor control systems normally include a feedback device or position sensor such as a resolver or encoder to provide speed and position information for a motor. Feedback devices and associated interface circuits increase the costs of a motor control system, and these costs may become prohibitive in high volume applications such as automotive applications. Additionally, a position sensor and its associated wiring harness increase the complexity and assembly time of an electric drive system in a vehicle.
Electric vehicles powered by fuel cells, batteries and hybrid systems that include electric motors are becoming more common in the automotive market. As production volumes for electric vehicles increase, the cost of feedback devices and associated interface circuits will become significant. Automakers are under intense market pressure to cut costs and reduce the number of parts for a vehicle. The removal of a feedback device for an electric motor control system will lead to significant cost reductions for an electric vehicle.
Hybrid electric and electric vehicles today utilize numerous electric motor control technologies such as the vector control of electric motors. A vector motor control scheme is a computationally intensive motor control scheme that maps the phase voltages/currents of a three-phase motor into a two axis coordinate system. The structure used to excite an electric motor using a vector control scheme is a typical three-phase power source inverter including six power transistors that shape the output voltage to an electric motor. Vector control requires rotor position information, which is normally obtained via a feedback device or position sensor. The objective of the position sensorless control is to obtain the rotor position information utilizing electromagnetic characteristics of an AC machine, eliminating the position sensor and its associated interface circuits.